Busy weekend for L.B. firefighters

Firefighters responded to a call for a partial wall collapse at an assisted living facility in West Atlantic Beach Saturday at around 2:30 p.m.

Courtesy City of New York Fire Department/Facebook

By Bridget Downes

Multiple ambulance calls throughout the weekend kept the Long Beach Fire Department on its toes. Firefighters rushed to extinguish a house fire in the Canals Saturday at around 8:40 p.m., fire officials said. The first firefighters on the scene, at 17 Barnes St., noticed fire coming from the attic of the one-story house.

The flames spread from the attic to the exterior of the house, said Fire Commissioner Scott Kemins, adding that firefighters opened up the ceilings and walls to expose the fire and extinguish it. The fire was under control within half an hour, he added, and no injuries were reported.

The residents were not home at the time, when neighbors saw smoke and flames and called the Fire Department. The four-person family is currently displaced, Kemins said.

The Nassau County Fire Marshal and Arson Bomb Squad is investigating the fire, he said, but it is believed to have begun from a heating lamp in the attic.

The Long Beach Fire Department was assisted at the scene by the Oceanside and Island Park fire departments, and the Lido-Point Lookout, Woodmere, Inwood and Rockville Centre departments stood by in case other alarms came through to the firehouse.

There was also a partial wall collapse at an assisted living facility in West Atlantic Beach at around 2:30 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters said they located a large section of facade that had fallen off the side of a maintenance room on the roof, but there is currently no structural instability and no injuries were reported.

Multiple calls kept firefighters busy Saturday, as they also responded to a call for a missing surfer who became lost in the fog, Kemins said. Firefighters rushed to the beach at National Boulevard at around 4 p.m., located the surfer and no injuries were reported.

“Saturday was quite the day,” Kemins said. “It was a crazy weekend.”

Saturday at around 11 p.m., firefighters were alerted to a car collision on New York and West Park avenues, Kemins said, in which four people were injured. Two people were transported to South Nassau Communities Hospital’s Long Beach Emergency Department and one was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside.

Kemins said the department received at least 12 other ambulance calls throughout the weekend, although they were minor.